After a yummy Sunday breakfast of eggs and pancakes, we went off to our last morning of classes at the Iwannaknit ReTreat. My workshop was Recycling Old Sweaters into Tote Bags.
We had a good variety of sweaters from thrift shops and personal collections. Soon we were ironing on interfacing and cutting into the knitted fabric. As often happens in my classes, people take my ideas and improve on them! I learn a lot from my students.
This is Rebecca’s tote bag in progress. She enhanced the flowers embroidered on the sweater, by adding yellow buttons to their centers.
Many of us who use machines also knit by hand, but this year, we welcomed lots of people who exclusively hand knit (though we convinced some to add machine knitting to their repertoire). Why this influx of hand-only-knitters? Cat Bordhi, author of several books, including two Treasuries of Magical Knits, taught classes on Moebius scarves and containers. She left a bunch of happy knitters in her wake.
Knitting Today sponsors a web board for people interested in hobby gauge and standard gauge machine knitting, hand-knitting, and crochet. ReTreat participants will be posting photos of our weekend on the board. Check it out here.
After our farewell lunch, I had to pack. My stuff grew to 1-1/2 times its original size over the weekend. I only bought two books and a magazine, so how could this be? It’s one of the unexplained phenomena that happen at knitting conventions. Then Mary K. and I headed toward the airport with a little side stop at PaintBrush Farms, where we found Alpacas of Many Colors.
Kathy gives all her alpacas interesting and original names, but I can’t remember a single one. She brought us a baby to pet. It was soft as a cloud. Its mama clucked at it a little worriedly, but seemed to think it was in good hands.
These have been shorn of a year’s growth of fur, about six inches. The shearer leaves fur on their tails (helps them flick the flies away), on their legs (more relief from flies), and their heads (fashion statement).
Don’t you love all their different hair-dos!?! The black one didn’t have much of a topknot, but he had beautiful, long eyelashes.
Now here’s a handsome, regal male. The illusion of royalty was shattered, though, when I saw him rolling in the dust with one of his buddies.
These males are still waiting for their summer haircuts. It’s hard to imagine the delicate, slender animals hidden under all this hair.
Here’s the sun setting on my Indiana adventure, as I flew south to Texas.
